Quietly something is happening. Without any fanfare, streaming movies are starting to take over.

And it is because of our want it instantly culture that is pushing it forward much more quickly than forecast. Currently using mainstream methods involve having to wait or do some work before viewing your movie streams.

The company doing the most to drive it forward currently is Netflix, starting to diversify from its postal DVD service with its new service called ‘Watch Now’ which is actually worth watching now.

It started a year ago when origionally launched, Watch Now allowed every regular Netflix subscriber the option of watching a choice from around 1000 plus streaming movies via PC, and on demand, with no downloading needed.

As the catalogue of available movies grew to 12000 plus movies and availability for Mac users. The time limit that had been set for useage wss eliminated. So for your $9 per month you can get DVD by mail and unlimited streaming movies on PC, wicked huh?

So watch as many movies as you want, no worrying that it may be pants. You can just watch a few scenes then move on. The only problem was that you have to sit in front of your PC screen. Not always an audio visual feast.

So to counter this Netflix teamed up with Roku and developed a small settop box for $100 that lets Netflix users watch streaming movies straight onto that massive plasma TV rather than your 14 inch PC screen.

You still have to choose the movie via PC though before viewing, but hey its getting to be great for watching movies.

But then came another development. Netflix starting getting even busier, streaming movies appeared on TiVo’s. Xbox 360 joined in, Bluray DVD players and next will be a feature built into the Television sets themselves (coming in spring). Because the software has already been developed in can be pretty much dropped into any hardware device.

The only real current downside is that the selection of streaming movies arent exactly bang up to date with Hollywood blockbusters. Due to the stupid Hollywood system of release windows, internet has to wait until the movie has been released on DVD, played on subscription cable and satellite channels before becoming available online.

But even with these restrictions, you can see that this service will just get better and better. Whilst everything else is downsizing, the streaming movie market is growing in leaps and bounds.

I think everyone is pretty clued up on P2P networks and Torrent sites. They are used to download files such as movies and games etc. They do have their uses, but the main drawbacks are that your IP address is recorded which may come vback to haunt you. Plus the fact that the download speeds sometimes crawl along or stop entirely.

I was therefore interested to hear about Alternative and anonymous Downloading from a website called Usenext. This is a Usenet service

So what is Usenet i hear you ask? Well basically it is a Newsgroup or group that has noone in charge. It is not just a file sharing program and it has been around since before the internet and works in a different way to the net. So we have discovered that Usenet is not:-

not a P2P network.
not a forum.
not chat software.
not the Internet.
not censored.
not illegal.
not a Torrent site

Erm. So what is it then? Well basically it provides users an area to post in discussion boards messages and or files. The groups cover many topics. And because your activities on these groups are unmonitored its appeal is pretty high

UseNeXT have software that makes it easy for anyone to browse the millions of topics/discussions happening in the Usenet and find what you require. UseNeXTâ€™s software automatically uses a fast delivery server, allowing you to download anything from Usenet at your Internet connectionâ€™s maximum speed. Plus, you are also guaranteed that there will be no limitations when it comes to your download rate. The great thing about Usenet is that there are no restrictions on space, so users can post massive files to share.

Anonymous useage

Heres the Wiki explanation on the useage

‘Establishing the identity of the person posting illegal content is equally difficult due to the trust-based design of the network. ..most P2P users distributing content are typically immediately identifiable to all other users by their network address, but the origin information for a usenet posting can be completely obscured and unobtainable.

Also unlike modern P2P services, the identity of the downloaders is hidden from view. On P2P services a downloader is identifiable to all others by their network address. On usenet, the downloader connects directly to a server, and only the server knows the address of who is connecting to it. Usenet providers do keep usage logs, but this logging information is not casually available to outside parties like the RIAA’

So basically you get an unlimited choice at the fastest speed with no tracking of your IP. It is much better and consistent at downloading than peer-2-peer or torrent sites. And an extra bonus is that you don’t have to share. So at last your able to make the full use out of your high speed internet connection. You can actually download at maximum speed with no restrictions on download speeds.

In the beginning came Youtube and the world was good. But the big bad TV networks, Fox and NBC were not amused. They didnt like video clips of their shows being broadcast over Youtube because they didnt make any money from it. They created a new force in internet TV websites and it was called Hulu, allowing full TV shows to be broadcast across the internet.

So what of CBS, the other big TV network? CBS had declined to be one of Hulu’s partners at its launch, instead concentrating on its own CBS Website. Now they are moving up a gear, first putting their content on CBS.com and now relaunching TV.com the well know TV community website, into a video destination portal to rival its competitors.

CBS is mounting a challeng to the Hulu and Sling full TV show websites with TV.com after picking up the website amongst other assets aquired with the $1.8 billion acquisition of CNET last summer. Other great names aquired were: News.com, MP3. com and Radio.com. The TV Schedules website receives around 16 million unique visitors each month checking out whats on TV, watching clips and other content. Visitors can view around 19,000 shows and there will be much more of a social networking aspect around the content rather than just straight video viewing as Hulu does.

A TV.com spokesman said:- â€œWeâ€™re giving users easier access to new videos, a simpler way to talk about favorite shows, and an overview about what everyone else on the site thinks about the latest in TV. Think of it as an improved â€˜landingâ€™ page, giving you a snapshot of happenings on the site without having to search all over for information. The main purpose is to show new users that theyâ€™re entering a thriving community of people much like themselves.â€

Its great to have another big player in the catch up tv world and hopefully we will eventually have a killer internet tv website

Sling Media’s new website previously in beta mode as reported on worldtvpc’s previous post (sling media new website) has now gone ‘live’.

The new website sling.com will initially be offering over 600 free TV shows and videos placing it in direct competition with Hulu and Joost’s internet tv website services.

Sling.com is the latest of many such Internet tv websites offering premium catch up tv content, reflecting the publics ever growing desire for TV to be watched anytime, anyplace and anywhere.

Partners on the website include Fox, CBS, Sony, MSNBC, Warner Bros., Starz Entertainment, PBS and Comedy Time. You can instantly watch bang up to date episodes of 30 Rock and Survivor, or travel back in time to view the original Star Trek series.

Sling Media currently is best known for its Slingbox device which enables viewers to watch their home TV remotely from a computer, cell phone or mobile device with a high speed broadband connection.

Internet users will be able to watch Sling.com, which Sling Media is planning to make financial successful via advertising revenue sharing with its content partners.

Slingbox owners don’t have to download any special software onto a computer to watch their home TV. Sling.com makes it easy to control multiple Slingboxes through a media player or remote control called the SlingCatcher.

However its a tough market and Sling is not alone in the free online TV market.

Hulu, a joint venture of NBC and Fox, launched a similar service this year, and there are many other competitors such as Joost, Veoh, Comcast’s FanCast, MSN, MetaCafe and, of course, YouTube. Viewers can also watch TV shows online by going directly to the TV networks websites such as NBC.com and ABC.com.

Brian Jaquet, spokesman for Sling Media, said he doesn’t believe the market has too many players:- “I think this is a hot market,” he said. “Hulu has set a nice bar.”

James McQuivey, a principal analyst for Forrester Research, said by email “the market is saturated in one sense.”

But, McQuivey said, there’s little cost to building a Web site “since all Sling has to do is sign up to become a syndication partner for the TV networks.

“More importantly, the site is really just Sling’s secret strategy for delivering Internet content to the TV via the SlingCatcher (media player),” McQuivey said.

McQuivey said consumers will see more efforts to deliver Internet content to the TV.

Jaquet noted TV networks first resisted the idea of free online programming but increasingly have realized there’s little to stop such content from being ubiquitous on the Internet.

He also said a site like Sling.com can help drive more traffic to the TV networks by promoting when a TV show airs, and other episodes and aspects of the show.

We at worldtvpc dont think you can ever have enough online TV websites so keep em coming.

Graboid Promise free downloads, but you have to pay for it. It smells dodgy, but is it worth a bean?

For everyone in the know about watching TV on PC, you will know that there are several different methods of watching movies and tv shows online but all are somewhat illegal or full of hidden risks at this present time.

A new software product called Graboid has been released that promises much. Its a downloadable software Peer to Peer (or P2P as its often called) file sharing application that operates as a dedicated videos only viewer. It allows viewers to find, watch and download thousands of TV shows, movies, anime series, adult movies amongst a massive selection, but the problem is that so do free P2P and torrent programs, they also offer a very easy to use frontend and promise Full length quality and even high definition (HD) in many cases.

Although the software is well designed and lets you watch content at the same time it downloads. It uses the free Usenet p2p service which offers a host of both freely available and not so legal stuff.

If you want to watch free movies and TV shows with a minimum of hassle then i recommend you just get yourself hooked up to a torrent site or download a peer-2-peer product and save your cash.

Although Graboid offer a free trial, if you look around the web you will find that some people complain they have trouble deleting the files and getting rid, so risk it only if you have a spare computer that may get infected.

Verdict:- Graboid works ok and makes it easy enough to find whatever movie or TV show you want and you can watch directly from the source or Download to your hard drive for offline or mobile viewing. Usenet has a great community via full web integration letting you participate in discussions and get support and advice from the community forums but why pay for it. I recommend you don’t.